Natalya Radina, Belarus

2011 CPJ International Press Freedom Awardee

Natalya Radina, editor-in-chief of the pro-opposition news
website Charter 97, which covers government
wrongdoing, human rights violations, and corruption in Belarus, was arrested in
December 2010 after members of the KGB, the country's security service, stormed
her office. Radina was indictedon charges of organizing
mass disorder in the post-election opposition protests in Minsk, and faced up
to 15 years in prison.

In late January, KGB officers released Radina, pending trial,
on the condition that she immediately leave Minsk for the western town of
Kobrin, where she held permanent residence. She was forced to sign an agreement
saying she wouldn't leave Kobrin during the investigation, and her passport was
confiscated, she said. The KGB forbade her from speaking substantively about
her case, and she was ordered to be available by cell phone at all times, to
check in daily with the local police, and to appear at regional KGB
headquarters whenever summoned, she said.

In March 2011, unable to work and fearing imprisonment,
Radina fled Belarus for Russia. She spent the next four months hiding in Moscow
before relocating to Lithuania, where she was granted asylum. She
continues to edit Charter 97, which has
been a reliable news source for information from the tightly controlled nation.